


In Word and In Deed

by UnmaskedCardinal (sturms_sun_shattered)



Series: Teba/Harth Oneshots [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Cloaca, Combat, First Time, M/M, New love, Non-Penetrative Sex, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Coital Cuddling, Rare Pairings, Tender Sex, Youthful Awkwardness, i wrote an actual love story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:27:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sturms_sun_shattered/pseuds/UnmaskedCardinal
Summary: In which Teba and Harth go out on patrol without a clear understanding of what they mean to one another and end up entangled together in the snow.
Relationships: Harth/Teba (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Teba/Harth Oneshots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931161
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	In Word and In Deed

**Author's Note:**

> Chronologically this goes between _To the Victor_ and _As a Matter of Duty_ , but I'm keeping my E rated fics at the end of this series. I reread _As a Matter of Duty_ and realized that I left a treat for myself. This fic sprang from this section:
> 
> “Teba knew that he had failed to live up to his heritage the moment he and Harth had gone on their first patrol after Harth’s fateful confession. It had ended with them entangled in each other in the snow, and Teba had been helpless to use his good judgment where Harth was concerned from that moment on.”
> 
> Thanks to the most wonderful and enthusiastic beta, [acacias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acacias)! Without you this would not be nearly so good ♥

Teba glanced across the Flight Range lodge at Harth and quickly looked away before those soft green eyes could meet his. As their First Warrior outlined his plan for mountain flyovers, Teba found himself unable to focus on his duty as a warrior for the first time since he had picked up a bow. It had been mere days since Harth confessed his attraction in this very lodge, barely a wingspan from where he stood now, and Teba fought to contain the smile that threatened to shatter his serious expression at the memory of it.

“Teba, Harth,” called Kyvoro as he assigned flyovers to the gathered warriors.

At the sound of his name called alongside Harth’s, Teba’s heart stopped for a moment and he wondered if they had been found out. They had not yet disclosed any sort of intent between them, as was expected of warriors entering romantic arrangements. If he was being honest, Teba wasn’t entirely sure what to call what had transpired between them—they certainly hadn’t exchanged any formal declarations.

“You’re to clear Rospro Pass. It’s routine enough that even two newly fledged warriors ought to be able to handle it,” said Kyvoro. From anyone else it would have been teasing, but the First Warrior had no sense of humour to speak of. Regardless, there was a small round of suppressed chuckles from some of the older warriors among them. Teba’s face felt hot beneath his feathers, wondering what some of their knowing glances seemed to be about.

As the warriors set out to their assignments, Teba joined Harth as they flew out over the pass. He glanced cautiously around to ensure that no one else flew in their path and saw the distant shapes of their fellow warriors fading into the perpetual drift of falling snow through the region.

“What are the chances we’d end up together?” Harth pestered gleefully.

“Do you think they know?” Teba asked.

“Who? And know what?”

“The other warriors...about us.”

“Why would you think that?”

“The way they laughed when we were assigned together.”

“You never could take a joke,” smirked Harth.

“I fail to see what’s so funny about us being assigned to a patrol together.”

“They were laughing at our inexperience. It’s an easy patrol,” said Harth, impish gleam in his eye. “Besides, I’m not certain I know what exactly they would be laughing at. As far as I know, all that we have between us is an afternoon of archery and a confession extracted under duress.”

“Is that all that was?” asked Teba darkly.

“You tell me. We’ve barely spoken since then.”

“I should think it was obvious,” Teba dismissed him.

“I told you that...I cared for you,” Harth said carefully, avoiding that more loaded phrase that had erupted so endearingly from his beak on the battlefield. “You haven’t said the same.”

Though the world stretched out wide around him, Harth had Teba cornered. It was not a position to which he responded well.

“What do you want me to say?” Teba asked acerbically. “Shall we _court_? Parade ourselves around the boardwalk wing-in-wing like some—”

“If you didn’t want to be with me you should have said so,” Harth said, and the hurt that laced his voice cut Teba more deeply than he would have ever expected.

“Harth, I didn’t say that,” Teba backtracked.

“How am I to know what you feel if you don’t tell me?”

“I haven’t rejected your advances.”

Harth huffed a mocking laugh, but said nothing. Most of the time, Harth talked nearly incessantly, sometimes about absolutely nothing at all, and Teba always admired his ease. Outside of the battlefield, Teba could rarely scrape together the words to convey the barest shadow of his intent. He preferred his actions to speak for him.

“You see the camp?” Teba asked, returning his focus to the more navigable realm of duty.

“Two lizalfos and a moblin,” said Harth, squinting at the shapes huddled around the fire.

“Strategy?”

“You’re asking me?” Harth asked in surprise.

“You’re as good a warrior as anyone,” said Teba, landing on the narrow ledge that overlooked the monsters’ camp.

“I’m sure you _think_ that sounds complimentary...” Harth groused, kicking up the damp snow a little as he joined Teba.

“Right,” sighed Teba, checking his quiver. “I have two bomb arrows.”

“I’m out,” said Harth.

“Take mine.”

“No, Teba. You’re the better archer.”

Teba didn’t have the heart to point out that that was why he wanted Harth to have them—the damage would be done in the chaos of the explosions, direct hit or no. Teba didn’t know if he could bear to watch Harth struggle to land a hit against such swift foes—not with that growing ache in his chest that made him want to draw Harth near whenever he saw him.

Sighing, Harth reluctantly took the bomb arrows that Teba held out to him, carefully unwrapping one to nock in his bow.

“I’ll get the lizalfos first,” Teba told him. “Keep them busy.”

Harth nodded, his expression serious as he surveyed the ground below. Impulsively, Teba leaned in and turned Harth’s face toward him so he could brush their beaks together. As he pulled back, Harth’s expression softened, and Teba’s heart raced as he held his gaze.

“Let’s get this over with,” said Harth, though there was no ire in his tone.

Teba leapt over the edge and caught his bow in his talons as Harth set off the rounds of bomb arrows. Through the swirling debris and reek of sulphur, Teba dropped into his stance and sent a lizalfos to its death. The other had seemingly disappeared in the explosion—as sometimes happened with the icy ones—though duty required he find some proof of death. Teba caught himself midair, his bow in his talons. As Teba spotted the burning remnants of the creature’s tail below, Harth threw himself into the fray.

Harth dived daringly close, into the moblin’s arm-span to harass it with two nocked arrows. The beast howled and lashed out with a rough-hewn bat. Harth narrowly avoided the weapon that was nearly his size, arrogant pride still on his face as he climbed in the air once more. Teba swooped in, but couldn’t land a shot as the flailing arms grasped up at him.

“I have it!” Harth called, attempting a daring manoeuvre. Feathered edge in hand, Harth dropped into a steep dive, driving the point of the blade into the base of the moblin’s neck. Unable to halt his momentum, Harth left the blade buried in the moblin as he rolled through the snow.

Heart in his throat, Teba finally got a shot in, finishing the beast. The moblin’s death-howl echoed through the pass as Teba landed beside Harth, fearing the worst. Harth pushed himself off the ground with a cocky laugh, even as he panted to catch his breath and shook the snow from his feathers. Choked by Harth’s foolhardiness, Teba turned back toward the site of the battle to gather the arrows that had gone astray.

The wind keened through the pass above them as Harth pulled himself to his feet and leaned back against a white-barked tree, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. Furious over his carelessness, Teba was torn between berating Harth and pressing him up against the peeling bark so that he might once again feel his touch.

“You take unnecessary risks,” Teba finally told him, standing close to the still burning fire to warm himself.

“This? Coming from you?” Harth scoffed.

“I don’t get off on cheating death.”

“I’m beginning to think you don’t get off at all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Teba growled.

Harth pushed off of the tree and closed the gap between them, catching Teba near the waist by the edge of his cuirass. Teba let the loose arrows fall to the ground beside him, unable to resist pulling Harth close and running his beak along the length of Harth’s. Teba’s whole body still seemed to pulse with the beat of his heart the few times they had done this since Harth’s confession—he could never seem to believe it was real.

Harth’s hands roamed his body as Teba exposed his throat to Harth’s searching beak. Grasping Harth’s waist, Teba dragged him close, frustrated by the layers of leather and cloth that lay between them. Harth nipped at his neck and drew his hand up through the short feathers on Teba’s thigh. With a surprised gasp, Teba pulled back a little, away from the wingtip that had wandered beneath the leather fauld that hung about his hips.

“Too far?” Harth asked, withdrawing his wing.

“ _Ah_...” Teba cleared his throat, light-headed and a little embarrassed by his own shyness. “You don’t think we might be seen?”

Harth looked bemused by the prospect, but took Teba by the wing and led him up a narrow path between two rising rock faces. Sheltered between the steep mountain rocks, Teba and Harth cleaved once more to each other, their cuirasses falling away into the snow beside them. Teba trailed one wing down Harth’s breast, enamoured with how those oft-hidden feathers turned from charcoal to silver, even paler as they disappeared below Harth’s fauld.

“It’s not as though you’ve never seen me like this before,” said Harth.

His stomach squirming and an urgent throbbing between his legs, Teba had to disagree. Certainly he had seen Harth undressed, but he had never before seen Harth panting and eager, nor combed his fingers through the soft down on his chest, nor thought of how beautiful Harth’s muscled-shoulders were, begging for Teba to nip at them.

“If that’s how you feel, we may as well get dressed and return to the Flight Range before we’re missed,” Teba told him sharply.

“How are you this grumpy?” asked Harth, his wing once more beneath Teba’s remaining armour, so close to...

“Wait,” Teba gasped, stepping back. “I—I haven’t done this before.”

“Really?” Harth asked in surprise. “You’re not saving yourself are you?”

“No!”

“I really thought you and Saki had—”

“No, not this far. We kissed, that’s all.”

“How have you not?” Harth asked, still seemingly unable to believe it.

“You needn’t make me feel ashamed of it,” Teba said crossly. “I spent the entirety of my youth training to be a warrior. It left little time for much else.”

“I’m...you’re so...”

“What?”

“I suppose I couldn't believe it because you’re...” Harth paused, as though unable to find the words he was looking for. He reached a hand up to Teba’s face, weaving his fingers through Teba’s unruly crest. “You’re like watching a storm. You’re powerful and untouchable, and all I ever want to do is get lost in you.”

Teba exhaled slowly, as lost for words as always, and drew Harth close once more, determined to show him what he couldn’t seem to say. Their beaks scraped roughly as Teba loosened the straps on Harth’s fauld, his hands shaking with anticipation.

“Are you sure?” Harth asked, as the leather fell in the snow at his feet.

“Waited long enough,” Teba panted, his wing trailing down between Harth’s legs as Harth fumbled with the fastening on Teba’s fauld.

As Teba found the spot where Harth’s feathers grew fine and palest silver, Harth drew his breath in a shivering gasp and gripped Teba’s still fastened fauld, his body stiffening. Teba felt a smile threatening the corner of his beak; he had barely grazed Harth’s cloaca, already engorged and glistening with his eagerness.

Abandoning his attempt to unfasten the stubborn leather on Teba’s fauld, Harth pushed Teba back into the snow, falling nearly on top of him as Teba dragged him down with him. Teba couldn’t hold back the quivering trill that escaped him as Harth pushed the stubborn armour up from his hips to his waist, leaving him fully exposed to Harth’s ravenous gaze.

Breathless with anticipation, Teba lay back in the snow, nearly overwhelmed as Harth parted the damp down around his cloaca. Teba squirmed beneath Harth’s touch, the sensation of someone else in that sensitive stretch nearly unbearable in its pleasantness. Harth’s breath escaped him in an elated laugh at Teba’s writhing. 

“Why are you laughing?” Teba asked self-consciously.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Harth smiled.

Teba shuddered a little as Harth teasingly circled his vent with one finger, spreading thin the salty trail that beaded there.

“Perhaps not if you do that too much longer,” Teba gasped, barely resisting the urge to grind against Harth’s hand.

With one more playful stroke, Harth withdrew and rested his hands on Teba’s thighs. Dizzy with anticipation, Teba eagerly parted them and pushed himself up on one elbow to draw Harth near. Harth smiled, a huff of nervous laughter escaping his beak as he pulled himself on top of Teba and squirmed between his legs until their cloacae met, slick and swollen.

As Harth’s hips began to move, Teba wrapped him in his wings, his pulse thrumming fervidly through his being from that tormented place between his legs, up to the inside of his eyes. This was _Harth_ for Hylia’s sake! Something behind Teba’s chest ached so badly for something inside of Harth that no matter how close they pressed to one another it wasn’t close enough, their bodies preventing the entwining of their spirits.

Harth nipped at his shoulder and Teba’s moan caught in his throat as their cloacae slid against each other, the urgent friction of their pace eliciting little gasps from Teba on each pass. The snow pushed between Teba’s feathers as he moved with Harth, the buckles of the fauld pressing uncomfortably into his back.

Light-headed, Teba rolled, pushing Harth into the snow and pressing himself between Harth’s legs so that he might take over and offer Harth the same pleasure. Hands dug in around Teba’s hips, Harth tilted his head upward to brush his beak to Teba’s as Teba tentatively found his rhythm. 

“ _Ah_ , Teba,” Harth moaned, and Teba immediately wanted to hear Harth say his name in that same prayerful tone once more. 

“Just as talkative as always,” Teba teased, but his voice was higher than usual, thin with breathlessness.

Harth pulled Teba forward, and Teba caught himself, elbows buried in the snow. Breast-to-breast, Teba could feel the flitting of Harth’s heart, and drew the curve of his beak over Harth’s neck. Teba could feel the gasp that caught in Harth's throat as he pressed Teba bruisingly closer, the sweet sting of contact driving Teba’s urgent pace.

“Oh Goddess, Teba!” Harth gasped, his hips bucking.

The sound of his name uttered with such veneration brought Teba to the edge of that precipice, and the world narrowed only to the sound of Harth’s prolonged, quivering sigh as they spilled themselves together. 

Panting with elation, Teba collapsed forward onto Harth’s breast, resting beneath a dark, languid wing. As the world steadied around him, Teba drew back, suddenly self-conscious in his stickiness.

“Don’t get up,” Harth begged in a whisper, his wing tightening around Teba.

Teba fell bonelessly into the snow beside him and rested his head on Harth’s shoulder. As Harth’s chest rose and fell, Teba drew his hand once more through those soft feathers, trying to catch his breath, wrapped in Harth’s wing.

“I didn’t foresee that when we left the Flight Range,” Harth said finally.

“Did I live up to your expectations?” Teba asked wryly.

“I didn’t have any expectations,” Harth laughed. “I didn’t think we’d ever do that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not really certain where you stand.”

Lanced through by the uncertainty in Harth’s tone, Teba raised himself on one elbow and brushed aside the stray hair that fell across Harth’s eyes. Harth’s expression remained serious and Teba struggled, knowing he couldn’t make a claim so elegant as Harth’s. How could he put into words how something deep inside of him yearned to touch that same thing inside of Harth, but caged in flesh as they were, never could the two meet.

“I stand with you,” Teba finally said.

“Is that a formal declaration?”

“Perhaps a declaration just between us,” said Teba, hesitant to muddy this bliss with formalities.

“Us,” breathed Harth, his eyes bright as he leaned up to draw his beak over Teba’s. “I like the sound of that.”

Teba bent forward to rest his forehead against Harth’s, nudging his beak affectionately, his heart on fire with the sound of Harth’s voice. _Us_.

“I like it, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading ♥


End file.
